[RKinner]

Yes. When I just tell it to remove one add-on it doesn't need to reboot. In my first vista version post I changed it but in the second XP version I forgot.

You should be good to go now assuming Firefox is working OK and you don't have any more problems we need to look at.

You can do the clean up routine if everything is working as it should.

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Great! Thank you so much. I appreciate all your time and effort very much, following your instructions was easy and your replies were very quick. Everything seems to be in working order and I don't have any of the previous symptoms.

One final note, I am now using Google Chrome instead of Internet explorer, have downloaded Spyware blaster and have the latest AVG installed. I do no use P2P downloading, rather I just browse the web. Is there anything more I should be doing to avoid this in the future? Do you recommend Firefox over Chrome for security? I've also followed the instructions here to update IE should I ever need to use it again.

Thanks again Ron

[cicalany]

Great! Thank you so much. I appreciate all your time and effort very much, following your instructions was easy and your replies were very quick. Everything seems to be in working order and I don't have any of the previous symptoms.

One final note, I am now using Google Chrome instead of Internet explorer, have downloaded Spyware blaster and have the latest AVG installed. I do no use P2P downloading, rather I just browse the web. Is there anything more I should be doing to avoid this in the future? Do you recommend Firefox over Chrome for security? I've also followed the instructions here to update IE should I ever need to use it again.

Thanks again Ron

[RKinner]

There is an add-on for Firefox called NoScript and for Chrome it's called ScriptNo. These will prevent a site from running Java or Javascript unless you say it's OK. Can be a pain but will definitely make things safer. I don't think there's much difference in safety between Chrome and Firefox these days. I'm just used to Firefox.

Also the free Online Armor firewall is worth trying. Much more reliable than Zone Alarm and doesn't ask so many questions either. I don't think the free version of AVG is supposed to have its own firewall but if it does then you don't want two. Personally I use Avast rather than AVG. I think they are better than AVG and I love their boot-time scan feature.

XP can also use the MVP hosts file: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm (It may slow things down a bit so test it.)

Keeping everything up to date is critical.

It's a good idea before you run a new file that you downloaded to submit it to http://www.virustotal.com and see what they say about it.

[cicalany]

Thank you for the advice - I've updated all my Chrome extensions to the one's you've suggested and am just setting up the Armor Firewall now.

Thanks again for all your help, I can't thank you enough! Hopefully I'll stay out of trouble now thanks to your help and advice.

Kind regards,
Cica